


Amongst Thieves

by Calais_Reno



Series: Fin de Siècle [11]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Crimes & Criminals, Don't copy to another site, France (Country), Great Hiatus, Grief/Mourning, Loneliness, M/M, POV Sherlock Holmes, Pining, Post-Reichenbach, Revolution, Sherlock in Exile, Travel, political violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22225489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calais_Reno/pseuds/Calais_Reno
Summary: "Perhaps this was to be my life lesson, the one I must learn many times without fully mastering. I had been foolishly confident of my own abilities, while grossly underestimating Moriarty’s. My fall at Reichenbach had not been the winning move of a chess match. It had been a desperate gamble, one that I lost."Still in exile, Holmes arrives in Paris and learns that Watson has been convicted of gross indecency and will serve two years in prison. Learning that Mycroft has died, he realises that he cannot yet return, but must try to contact Watson. While he waits, he gathers intelligence on Moran's operations in Europe.This is part of a Victorian AU. Each part can be read separately, but the overall story arc will make more sense if read in order.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Fin de Siècle [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551937
Comments: 2
Kudos: 49





	Amongst Thieves

**Author's Note:**

> Previously: Moriarty died at Reichenbach, but his organization eluded Scotland Yard and continued its takeover of the British Government. The raid was a failure, and Moran continued Moriarty's plan. Mycroft died under suspicious circumstances, and Watson was tried for gross indecency. Without resources, Holmes went into exile, spending time in a monastery and working as a common worker in field and factory. At this point in the story, he is preparing to return.

I remember a list Watson once made when he moved into the Baker Street rooms: _Sherlock Holmes: His Limits._ It was a list of my abilities, but framed in negative terms, beginning with the things I apparently knew little or nothing about. His assessment of me led to our first real argument; my pride injured, I nearly drove him away.

Admittedly, I am a foolish and vain man, and it stung me to think that he saw so many deficiencies in me. Much later I asked him why he began his list with _nil, feeble, variable_ before getting to the subjects where I excelled. I never forgot what he told me: _A man’s character at any point is defined more by what he doesn’t know than what he does._

It was humbling for me to realise that there were so many areas of knowledge that I had neglected. The longer I knew Watson, the longer that list grew as I saw my deficiencies more and more clearly. He became my conductor of light, illuminating my darkness. From him I learned that courtesy can be learned, but kindness comes from truly seeing people; facts may be analysed, but deductions are not the same as understanding.

His own limits were never entirely clear to me. There were always unexplored possibilities about him.

Habits are hard to change. Perhaps this was to be my life lesson, the one I must learn many times without fully mastering. I had been foolishly confident of my own abilities, while grossly underestimating Moriarty’s. My fall at Reichenbach had not been the winning move of a chess match. It had been a desperate gamble, one that I lost.

I headed north. It was the eighteenth day of November, 1895, when I arrived in Paris, a year since my “death” in the mill fire, four and a half years since Reichenbach. My exile had always been about keeping Watson safe, but there was no evidence that I was being followed at this point. Either Moran had decided that I had headed east, to Tibet, or he had concluded that I was dead. Even if he thought me alive, he could hardly see me as a threat. I’d been disgraced and discredited so thoroughly that my sudden reappearance would generate only skepticism.

The first thing I did was to get my hands on a newspaper. The French have an independent outlook, very different from the British mind, and I thought I might get a more objective look at what was happening in London from the French news. I’d left Milan two years earlier. At that time, Moran had begun his campaign to dominate Parliament. As expected, Watson had defended me. I hoped that Mycroft had been able to talk sense into him, or that Mary had forced him to think of their daughter.

I was startled by the headline I now read: _Watson Coupable._ Watson Guilty.

From the article I learned that he had pleaded guilty to gross indecency, but that charges of fraud and conspiracy had been dropped. He would serve two years of hard labour.

Still clutching the paper, I sank down to the pavement. _Oh, my poor Watson_! How did this happen? How had Mycroft allowed it? My brother must have anticipated this, and would have hired the best barrister to defend him. We had been careful; I did not see how a case could have been made. Things must truly have gone to Hell if a good man could be brought to trial for things that could not be proven.

My first impulse was to get on the next ship to England.

My second thought was that it was too late for whatever I thought I could accomplish there, that even Mycroft’s influence must not have been enough, and that the only thing that would happen if I suddenly rose from the dead was that they would throw me in prison as well, and probably for longer than two years. I was, according to Moran’s people, guilty of murdering James Moriarty. Since evidence apparently no longer mattered in the courts, I would not stand a chance.

I had no third idea, other than to get back on my feet and find my next meal. 

Paris is two cities.

When I was a boy, it was my grandmother Vernet’s _maison grande,_ just outside the city proper. My mother sent my brother and me there for a few weeks every summer to perfect our French. That Paris is a sparkling city of lights, theatres, restaurants, elegantly dressed people and lovely boulevards.

The Paris I finally reached after my long trek across France was another city: dirty, crowded, and cold. The cold was to be expected, considering the season, but what I felt was more than temperature. Though I spoke French well, I was dressed as a derelict, and immediately felt a degree of hostility from those I politely addressed, seeking lodging and work.

Having spent two years walking through French villages, working in the fields and mills, my accent was not nearly what my mother would have called _de la haute société,_ nor even _bourgeoise_. I had tried to fit in with the people I lived among, the poorest of the poor. It was not an advantage to sound too posh in that company.

The weather was cold and rainy, making everything about the city infinitely more miserable. I was acutely aware how much more pleasant it would be to have money. I could not afford lodging, could barely afford food, and ended up sleeping on the streets for several nights. I was willing to do almost any type of work I could find, and hoped that in the city it would be easier to find both work and anonymity.

There were factories I might have applied to, but Paris would have better opportunities. I should not have to do unskilled labour in a city of this size and diversity in order to survive. I had my limits, as Watson would say, but I possessed various talents that might be put to good use. 

It appeared that England’s economy was sliding into depression, and that France was gearing up for the same. Businesses were not hiring, and wages were low. The previous two harvests had been poor, and food was expensive.

For several weeks I found day jobs. I mucked out sewers, hauled laundry, dug ditches, made deliveries, and washed dishes. Having no skill requirement other than a willingness to get dirty and the strength to do the job, none of this day work paid much, however. I was living hand to mouth, requiring food in order to work, work in order to pay for food.

I happened upon a locksmith shop one day in December. _Martin Dufour, Serrurier,_ the sign said. A bitter cold snap had descended on the city, making most outdoor work arduous. My gloveless hands ached in the cold, and I longed for better shoes.

I stood staring at the sign for some minutes, a plan taking shape in my mind. As a boy, my fascination with locks and keys had led me to take apart many door mechanisms. As a detective, I’d worked with locksmiths, who had taught me the skills cracksmen used to open locked doors and break into safes. I had sent more than one cracksman to prison.

The owner was a man of about my age, I guessed, a wiry, dark-haired Celt with darker eyes that studied me as I looked around and then approached the counter.

I voiced my desire to work in the shop; the owner seemed uninterested in hiring me. I offered to demonstrate my skills, but he told me he wasn’t about to hire anyone. “Business if fair, but variable,” he said. “Can’t afford extra help.”

I realised I needed a different approach. Indispensable I must be, or else inexorable. I spent the day looking at pawn shops in the neighbourhood, mentally cataloguing goods and prices.

That night I picked the lock on his front door, entered, and quietly opened every safe in the shop. The worst that might happen was that I could be thrown into gaol for a few days, where I would at least be fed and kept relatively warm. I hadn’t stolen anything, and I hadn’t fled. Three days would be my sentence, I estimated.

When morning arrived, the shop owner found me sitting at his work table, waiting for him.

“Bon jour, Monsieur Dufour,” I greeted him.

His initial reaction was astonishment, then anger, accompanied by more profanity than I had ever learned from my grandmother.

“You will call for the constable?” I asked. “It really is not a good advertisement for a locksmith to be burgled so completely. Not that I’ve taken anything.”

“You’re making me look a fool,” he growled. “What do you want?”

He was not an idiot, I divined. “I note that your brother owns several pawnshops in the area, where you undoubtedly profit from the fruits of your night labours.” I gave him a meaningful smirk.

He glared at me steadily, understanding dawning on his dark features. “You intend to blackmail me?”

“I seek employment, monsieur. While blackmail might earn me a steady income, it is the vilest of crimes. I will be content if you hire me.”

I had no intention of blackmailing him. Watson might have been surprised, but in my present circumstances I did not object to crime, _per se._ Blackmail, however, was a hard limit for me. I would appeal to Dufour’s sense of honour. He was a cracksman, and I sought to enter his fraternity. Even amongst thieves, there is honour.

By the end of our conversation, we had reached an agreement. As I had observed, he was in fact fencing stolen goods in his brother’s establishments. Whether he was doing the cracking himself or working with others, I saw an opening for my skill set.

“What I do, it is merely a redistribution of wealth,” he told me.

I nodded. “Vive la revolution.”

As a refugee, I had no qualms about living on ill-gotten gains. Certainly Paris was no better than London in its treatment of the poor. Martin Dufour was a careful man, and he valued the skill set I brought with me, by which I was able to nearly double the income of his small business. I thanked my stars that I’d learned the basics of safe-cracking from a master in London.

I soon discovered that my new line of work had another potential advantage. Moran had his fingers in quite a few French pockets. As a thief, I might be able to access those same pockets, learn about Moran’s operations in this country, and eventually subvert them. It was a long shot, but the French, being naturally inclined towards overthrowing governments and plundering the wealthy, might be happy to make an example of these bastards.

Dufour was more than just a businessman. He was a revolutionary, he explained, the grandson of a man who’d helped to overthrow the monarchy in France. It ran in his blood, he said, to note injustice and undermine it in every way he could. He and a small group of friends met every Friday to drink wine, sing revolutionary songs, and discuss the stupidity of everything.

However naive their ideals, he and his comrades were extremely well-informed, communicating with an underground network of similar-minded people. It was from them that I learned of Moran’s activities on the continent, where he and Moriarty sought to influence other governments. The economic prosperity of the last two decades had ended, leaving thousands without work, as had happened in England.

“Why do we listen to these men?” Dufour asked. “People are idiots, electing men who have no intention of creating wealth for anyone but themselves. Look at the English! Fools, all of them!”

I read the newspapers every day, and thought of John, in his prison cell. I needed to get word to him, somehow, that I was alive. He needed to know that I’d be back as soon as I could manage it. I knew that Mycroft had been under seige, but he always kept himself out of the public eye; I was sure I would not read about my brother’s doings in the newspapers. I thought about contacting him, but didn’t want to draw attention to Paris right now. I would have to send a feeler, an innocuous-appearing letter that would get past any surveillance that Moran had in place.

What I finally came up with was an inquiry about a book. My brother was not a book collector, but I knew of one rare book he owned _._ It was not common knowledge that he owned this volume, and my inquiry, sent under our agreed-upon alias, would certainly let him know exactly who was behind it.

> _Dear Mr Holmes:_
> 
> _I am an agent for Hugo Altamont, a collector of incunabula. We understand you own an illustrated manuscript of Catullus printed in 1491. Understanding its value, Mr Altamont is prepared to make you an excellent offer for this book. Please reply to me at Postal Station No. 78, Paris._
> 
> _Lars Sigerson_

Weeks went by. Dufour and I learned the names of several people connected to Moran. I talked to housemaids and gardeners, broke into houses, and began to understand how Moriarty’s organisation was making headway in Paris. The next step might be to infiltrate the network with our own people. With Dufour I discussed several possible ways we might do this. But this was not the kind of revolution that Dufour and his people seemed to understand. They expected some dramatic and chaotic overturning of the existing government, but had no ideas about what might replace it.

“The most successful revolutions do not look like something new,” I told him. “A republic can turn into a autocratic oligarchy without anyone noticing. That is what will eventually happen if these men are not stopped. They only have to make it seem that they are restoring power to the people, and the people will allow them to take all the power for themselves. We must not let them do that.”

“Maybe the English will allow such a thing to happen, but such apathy is unthinkable in France,” he replied. “Blood will run in the streets before we let ourselves be ruled by rich men.”

Unfortunately, Moran’s was a more sophisticated type of takeover than Dufour was prepared to deal with. The locksmith and his friends wanted to burn things, cut off people’s heads and throw their bodies in the Seine. Moran’s plan, however, seemed to involve buying up large quantities of securities in several companies in return for promises of friendly legislation.

Watson had once assessed my understanding of politics as _feeble_ , but I at least understood that what Moran was doing was too subtle for the guillotine. Money talks, as they say. We had none, and his supporters had plenty.

Even so, we made some progress. France was not England, and people might rise up in protest if they suspected they were being duped.It appeared that Dufour and his friends might get to do some bloodletting.

A messenger came to us one evening as our little band of revolutionaries met in the rooms above Dufour’s shop. We had passed the wine around once, had raised toasts to _liberté, égalité, fraternité,_ and were just beginning to think of a second round when Amand came running in, breathless and flushed. They had taken a man, he said, a spy. We were invited to witness the interrogation.

“It won’t take long,” he told us. “The rat is English.”

The others chuckled, knowing that all Englishmen are weak under torture.

The rat was young, contemptuous, and frightened, though trying hard not to show it. A product of Harrow and Oxford, I deduced from his accent, son of an MP, the sort of man who goes into public service because his family expects it. Not really wealthy, but trying awfully hard to put on an appearance. An only son with several older sisters, one of whom had married very well. An arrogant, privileged toff who regarded the French as a business opportunity, but hardly capable of ruling themselves.

His name was Gerald Paxton-Smythe, he said— as if everyone knew that name, and those who didn’t were not worthy of his scorn. I understood this type of man, having known dozens of similar boys at school and university. He was a petty little bully with a perpetual sneer.

And, like most bullies, he was scared. He just didn’t know it yet.

“It doesn’t matter what I tell you. There’s nothing you idiots can do about it.” He spoke good French badly, like most public school boys, regarding it as the language of an inferior people.

“Then you may as well talk,” I replied in English, trumping his bad French with my poshest accent. “Perhaps I can persuade these idiots not to kill you.”

He frowned. “Who are you?”

“No one you need worry about. Tell me about Moran’s party. I want to know how he has managed this and what his plan is.”

The idiot talked. He seemed almost proud to explain the methods Moran had used to get his party into power, which shows how dangerous it can be to trust minor operatives. The less important they are, the greater their need to puff themselves up. He named people Moran had talked over to his side and people he’d eliminated when they got in the way. He mentioned the name _Mycroft Holmes_.

Most people, even those fairly high up in the power structure of British politics, do not recognise my brother’s name. He has considerable influence, knows everyone, understands how to get things done, but the position he holds is minor. It seemed unlikely that this foolish little toff would have even heard of him.

“Once we’d eliminated Holmes, the others fell in line.”

“Eliminated?”

The man smirked. “Whatever people like you may think, revolution doesn’t have to be bloody. Sometimes people need only a bit of encouragement to drop dead. Or a bit of poison.”

Mycroft was dead.

Rage was my first impulse. I wanted to bloody the pretty face smirking at me, cut the arrogance out of him.

He was oblivious to my fury. “Even less trouble than killing the brother,” he continued, heedless. “Sherlock Holmes, who thought he was so clever, met his death like a dog, running away with his tail between his legs.”

“How did that happen?” My voice was soft, perfectly level. “How did Colonel Moran kill Sherlock Holmes?”

He shrugged. “Most people think he went over the falls with Moriarty. But my father told me what really happened. He escaped after killing Moriarty. Moran hunted him down, shot him like an animal. Before he died, he begged for his life, and the life of his disgusting sodomite lover. _Oh, please, don’t kill me! Don’t kill John Watson!_ But he died all the same, quaking and pissing himself. And Watson stood up in court and admitted they’d been buggering each other. Look where that got him. He’s probably being buggered by prison guards now.”

The room had grown very quiet. Dufour was watching me, not understanding my rage, but seeing it nonetheless. He was alert in the way a cracksman is alert when he expects the last tumbler to click.

“It’s a shame, really,” I said calmly. “A shame that you won’t be able to tell your father that Moran was lying.”

“Lying?” The boy laughed. “Look, my father is going to offer you a pile of money to let me go. And you and your little band of patriots are going to take it because you’re just like everybody else. You’ll whore out your lofty ideals for a bit of cash.”

“It’s a shame,” I repeated, my voice almost a whisper now. “Your father won’t ever know that his son was killed by Sherlock Holmes. I might tell him, though, before I kill him.”

He looked less confident now. “Sherlock Holmes is—“

“Not dead.” Standing, I turned to Dufour. “This little bitch has told us all he knows. You can kill him now.”

“Wait!” The boy finally looked alarmed. “I told you, my father will pay.”

“Does your father know you’ve been sucking your best friend’s prick? Does he know his son is a sodomite?”

His face went pale. “You can’t be him. It’s impossible—“

“Eliminate the impossible, and what remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

I did not stay to hear him beg for his life. Nor did I watch Dufour kill him.

Even though he was seven years older than me, I’d never bothered to consider the possibility that Mycroft might die before me. He was not yet fifty, and though he was not always in the best of health, it was I who led a life of danger; he spent most of his hours sitting at a desk, reading and replying to letters. He worried constantly about the risks I took. _Your death would break my heart,_ he once warned me.

When my anger had gone cold, I felt my own heart broken, and I grieved.

My brother had kept me out of trouble more times than I could count, and I knew that he’d supported John as charges were brought against him. I grieved that I couldn’t have done something to save him. He’d warned me about Moriarty. _He’s a snake, Sherlock. Be careful where you step._

I grieved that I hadn’t ever told him what he meant to me. _Dear brother, rest in peace._

I soon realised the depth of my trouble. I’d managed for five years, staying alive, waiting for the moment when I could return— with Mycroft’s help, I’d always thought. He would know what to do and have the resources to get it done. I’d avoided contacting him for all this time because of what Moran had told me, that if I contacted anyone, he would see that all the people I loved died.

I’d often wondered why he hadn’t killed me that day on the train, why he hadn’t hunted me down and shot me _like a dog._ Ruthlessness was his modus operandi. He was a cruel man, a killer.

Now I understood. Moran knew that I was not the real threat; Mycroft was. With my brother gone, he was sure that I was powerless. That was why I was still alive.

Mycroft, not a murderer himself, had told me once that murder is a strategy, not a solution. Having brought to justice many people who attempted to solve their problems by murdering someone, I did not see it that way. What I eventually realised was that he was talking about politics.

Moran had no political reason to kill me, now that Mycroft was dead. As a penniless fugitive, I was causing him no problems in England, and he no doubt enjoyed seeing me suffer. 

In the end, however, he would kill me because he was the great Shikari, a hunter. I was sport to him. In this, he had probably made a mistake. He should have killed me when we met on that train in Switzerland, before I ever reached Milan.

He’d made a mistake. He had left me alive, thinking I was not dangerous. I had learned a lesson at the Reichenbach Falls. Moriarty had been a more dangerous foe than I had reckoned. I would not underestimate Moran, but I would make sure he continued to underestimate me. I must be dangerous.

I almost wished that I hadn’t asked Dufour to kill Gerald Paxton-Smythe. It would have been more interesting to send him back to his father, who would go straight to Moran and tell him. This would distract him, just when he could not afford distraction.

But that was anger talking, and arrogance. I needed him to believe me dead for a while longer. I now knew more about my enemy: I had names and understood how he had succeeded thus far. Patience was needed, not vengeance.

Watson was in prison. He might be safe there, I thought. I knew my boy was a fighter. There are assaults in prison, but Watson can handle himself. He is a small man, but tough as nails. I have seen him take down suspects larger than himself without breaking a sweat. People don’t expect this from a doctor, a little, soft-spoken man who does not stand out. I consoled myself in thinking he would be safer behind bars, where the danger was carefully controlled, than out on the streets, where he might be attacked by cowards whose faces he would not even see. That was Moran’s method.

But I also remembered the Watson who returned from Afghanistan, ill and depressed, seeing himself as a cripple, unworthy of affection. And I, too self-absorbed to notice his despair, had fretted because he didn’t like an article I’d written. It was Mycroft who had shown me how badly I’d misjudged him. I might have lost Watson then, but for my brother’s censure.

He would be out of prison in another year, provided his sentence had not been extended. I imagined what he would face. His wife, no doubt, had divorced him, or at least separated herself and their daughter from him. Mycroft, probably his only supporter, had died. And no one would have forgotten that he’d gone to prison for gross indecency; it was a shame he would forever bear like a brand. Two years of isolation and silence might have pushed him beyond endurance.

There had been days during my exile when the only thing that kept me going forward was knowing that he was alive. In my lowest moments, I imagined our reunion. He might be angry at me, away so long without even a word, a small hint that I was alive. But he would be alive, and it would all be worth it.

He did not have my advantage, though. As far as he knew, I was dead.

Mycroft might have told him I’d survived, had he known, but I had to assume my brother had died thinking I was dead. Now I had to get word to Watson without compromising my position, just to give him an atom of hope, a reason to continue living. By myself, there were limits to what I could do, but once I had my Watson at my side, we would defeat Moran.

In prison he could receive no packages, and even letters would be read by the officials. The kind of code I might have used to send a message, he would not have understood. My Watson is intelligent, but not cunning. Unless he expected a message, he would not look for it.

 _Prisoners are given Bibles._ It’s part of the effort to reform them.

In a used book store I acquired an English Bible. It would be inspected, but no one would think anything of favourite passages noted on the inside cover, or underlining in the text. Several nights of reading found me the passages that might send my message.

> _Psalm 31:20:_ _Thou shalt hide them_ _in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues._
> 
> _Malachi 3:7: Return to Me, and_ _I shall return to you_ _._
> 
> _Ezekiel 39:28: Then they will know that I am the LORD their God because I made them go into _ _exile among the nations_ _, and then gathered them again_ _to their own land_ _; and I will leave none of them there any longer._

It was a very long shot, but the only one I could think of. The passages I’d marked would be appropriate for a man in prison to consider. I prayed that Watson would consider them something more.

Though Watson did not include it in his listing of my limits, he knew me to be an impatient man. As the autumn of 1897 began, my urgency to be home increased. This was not a useful urgency, but one that might easily lead to disaster. I forced myself to stay. When I was sure Watson had been released, I would begin making my way back home.

I sent a second book to him, this one via Thomas Quick, my brother’s friend. Wrapped in brown paper and addressed simply to _John H Watson,_ the book itself would have to be the message this time: _La Divina Comedia._ I hoped he would guess who had sent it, a man finding his way out of Hell.

In Paris, we had penetrated the outermost circle of power, and were closing in on the inner circle. The death of our small English rat did not appear to have caused any ripples. I do not know what Moran surmised, but things remained calm in London, from what the papers reported.

Several laws were under consideration which, if passed, would criminalise vagrancy and create a system similar to the English Workhouse, though the proponents would claim it was something entirely different. One thing I had learned about France was that writers and intellectuals had a great deal of clout, which meant that there was a strong liberal media that we might use to our advantage. I became a liaison to one of the papers, occasionally writing editorials that pointed out the true aims of the legislation. This would have surprised Watson, since he had never seen me express any interest in politics.

Paris was filled not only with _les miserables,_ but also with _les dangereuses._ It was widely assumed that the poor were criminals who must be controlled. As a criminal myself, I could see the point, but the criminals I knew were not criminal by nature, but by circumstance. Society settles into a very unhealthy dynamic when people are given no legal way to support themselves.

The movement that Moriarty had started was all about money. For all his academic posturing about poverty and wealth, it had no high ideals. Its engine was greed. The Labouchere Amendment, despite all the moralising speeches made in its defence, had no purpose other than to make it easier to target men who opposed them. All they need do was suggest that a man was involved in activities that might be considered _gross indecency._ As Mycroft had foreseen, the law opened the way for blackmail and the ruination of innocent men.

Dufour and his friends were not completely on the side of the angels, but occasionally they took down a devil or two.

In the summer of 1898, demonstrations began in Paris, opposing the proposed laws. The march held on the first day of debate in the Assembly began peacefully, but soon went badly.

And once again, I was sent on my way through the kindness of a man who did not even know my real name.

“Renard,” Dufour said as we took refuge in a print shop on the second day of rioting. I was running the press, making handbills for distribution to the crowd. He lay a hand on my shoulder. “This is not your battle, _mon frere_. You cannot influence the result. Should our cause fail—“ He gave a Gallic shrug. “Go home, Renard.”

He embraced me then and pushed me towards the door. “Go before we are hemmed in here. Go back to England while you still can get away.”

I read later than over two hundred died in that demonstration. Dufour might have been among them. But the legislation failed, so it had not been in vain.

I began my journey back to London. It was difficult not to think of the last time I was in London, seven years earlier, when Watson and I left for Europe, thinking that Lestrade would arrest Moriarty and his gang in our absence, and we could return in a few weeks. My return would not be in triumph, as I had hoped then, but I had learned a few lessons during my exile. I must not fail Watson again.


End file.
